These Regulations are made in consequence of the Qualifications Wales Act 2015 (“the 2015 Act”). Part 2 of the 2015 Act establishes Qualifications Wales and sets out its principal aims.

These Regulations update references in legislation so as to reflect the new system of qualification regulation provided for in the 2015 Act.

These Regulations make amendments to primary and secondary legislation, which are in consequence of, or for the purposes of, provisions of the 2015 Act, namely Part 2 (establishment and principal aims of Qualifications Wales), Part 3 (recognition of awarding bodies), Part 6 (further provision relevant to recognition, approval and designation), section 56 (interpretation of references to “qualification”) of, and Schedule 3 (further provision about recognition of awarding bodies) and Schedule 4 (consequential amendments) to, the 2015 Act.

Qualifications Wales (which is established by section 2 of the Act) has functions of recognising bodies awarding qualifications in Wales (Part 3) and regulating such bodies through conditions of recognition (section 36 and Schedule 3). Section 34 addresses the qualifications which may be used on certain publicly funded courses, which generally limits them to forms of qualification which are either approved by Qualifications Wales (under Part 4) or designated by it (under Part 5). Schedule 4 amends Part 5 of the Education Act 1997 and Part 5 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000.

The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. As a result, it was not considered necessary to carry out a regulatory impact assessment as to the likely costs and benefits of complying with these Regulations.